ESPN may pay for data overages that customers encounter when viewing its content on mobile devices.

Many mobile subscribers now have data caps to worry about, since tiered pricing plans have taken over unlimited plans with most carriers. This means that customers must keep an eye on how much content they're consuming monthly, such as videos, games and music -- or else they'll be hit with hefty fees.

ESPN has been talking with an unnamed U.S. carrier about paying for a guarantee that mobile customers viewing its content wouldn't get slapped with data overage fees. This would allow smartphone or tablet users to watch as much ESPN as they'd like without it counting toward their monthly data cap.

This model isn't a sure thing yet, as ESPN is still merely in talks with the carrier. However, it could benefit all sides of the situation.

For ESPN, having consumers watch more of its events on smartphones and tablets means greater revenue from ads on these devices.

For the carrier, it means having a new source of revenue without having to keep hiking up monthly data plan prices for customers.

For the customers, they get to watch as much ESPN as they want without worrying about crossing that data cap.

While this could prove to be a great plan for content providers, carriers and mobile customers, telecommunications regulators may have something to say about the deals if they move forward.

Another possible way that ESPN could pay carriers is by sharing the advertising revenue with them.

ESPN is playing it smart and this is a very prudent reaction to try and deal with the greedy and short-sighted tiered data plans so many Americans have to deal with.

If this goes through, it will be interesting to see how the other carriers respond. Will they sign deals with Youtube or other heavy-data services and tout that in their ads in response the ESPN deal? Lower their data plan prices? It's a shame we can't just have decent unlimited data plans across the board and be done with it.

ESPN is only doing this because of McCain's bill to allow cable customers to choose the channels they want, and not be slapped with a huge monthly bill because they HAVE to pay for ESPN's channels (or ESPN threatens to discontinue their programming if ALL packages do not carry it).

Now ESPN looks like the good guy toward consumers, with this story conveniently breaking now. I'm not saying this isn't a great idea, just the motives behind it are suspect.

They're doing it because they demanded the highest subscription rate but also have the highest viewer rating. I know plenty of people who got cable simply for ESPN. If they can go independent of TV subscription then they can collect that subscription cost themselves and get more revenue in return. This is a push towards that direction.

I just wish they integrate themselves with Netflix or Hulu to simplify things for the customer.

quote: ESPN is only doing this because of McCain's bill to allow cable customers to choose the channels they want,

McCain announced that this week. The ESPN work has been ongoing. They are not related. Never mind that McCain has been promoting this legislation for many years without remote success so far.

And realistically, this would probably be with Sprint who has been willing to trade gobs of data time for customers. AT&T and Verizon have no such inclinations. But are you willing to switch to Sprint just for ESPN?

quote: Subsidizing wireless usage in this way would only give rise to this myth that smartphone data plans are capped because of congestion and a supposed high cost of moving data. However, studies show that the cost of delivering content to wireless customers has dropped while the user base has increased.

quote: Additionally, many consumers actually stream video to their wireless devices over a wifi connection, rather than the wireless company’s 3G or 4G setup, so ESPN would be paying money for customers who aren’t in any danger of reaching their monthly data cap. In 2012, the average mobile phone user was only using about 659 MB of data per month, only about 1/3 of a standard 2GB/month smartphone plan.

All this is really doing is having ESPN join forces with the cell phone companies to endorse and participate in their abusive pricing schemes. And while maybe ESPN can afford to send payola to the cell phone companies, what about any smaller content providers that can't? Reckon Daily Tech is going to fork money over to the cell phone companies?

No - this is nothing even vaguely resembling "smart" or "prudent" - this is a horrific catastrophe of epic proportions.

I'd really hate to live in some of your households. BTW, how exactly is surfing Dailytech going to put you over your cap?

quote: Subsidizing wireless usage in this way would only give rise to this myth that smartphone data plans are capped because of congestion and a supposed high cost of moving data. However, studies show that the cost of delivering content to wireless customers has dropped while the user base has increased.

I LOVE how people use something that doesn't explain sh!t to explain something.

what he is trying to say is that smaller content providers does not have the big budgets espn does. That means they are not competitive as they cannot cover the data cost for the consumer. ESPN basically locks the smaller guys out and can charge high fees since they are the only game in town.

No one is saying that DT is going to *cause* you to hit your bandwidth cap. We're saying that ESPN is BUYING preferential treatment on your data service...so that when you hit your data cap (however you managed to do that), suddenly you're spending more time on ESPN services because everything else is too slow. Because they've bought preferential treatment.

If other online services want to compete for your attention, they have to start buying the same preferential treatment. If DT wants you to keep visting their website after you've hit your cap, they have to cough up some cash - or else you'll spend time elsewhere, perhaps on websites that view themselves as competitors to DT, that have coughed up the cash.

They're not paying for overages. If that's what they were doing, you'd never have a cap.

They've buying your eyeballs once you *do* hit your cap. You become their slave...they own you. Because everything else will be too painfully slow to use, or maybe completely unavailable depending on your plan/carrier.

Youtube was a small company once. If the idea that content providers pay the wireless carriers becomes a common thing, then there is an effective barrier to any startups wanting to deliver high-bandwidth content to mobile devices.